Daniel Hale Williams
was born in 1858 in Hollidaysburg, PA on January eighteenth. He
was the fifth child born of seven kids.His life was not fair when the United States was still
segregated.
Segregation
means to separate people by color, race, or religion. His father was
a “free negro” and Daniel’s family moved to Annapolis, Maryland
in the 1860s. Daniel William's father died when Daniel was
eleven. In 1883, Daniel graduated from a medical college in Chicago. In
April, 1898 he married Alice Johnson. On January 23rd,1893, Williams established a
non-segregated hospital called The Provident Hospital. This
hospital was also a training hospital for doctors and nurses of
all races. On July 9, 1893 a young black man was transferred to
the Provident Hospital after being injured in a fight in a bar
by a person with a knife. The injured man, James Cornish, lost a lot
of blood. Williams must perform surgery and repair his
heart. Performing a surgery like this will be hard and tricky. Dr.
Williams' surgery was a success. He has preformed the first successful heart surgery, and James Cornish lived
twenty years after the surgery. In February 1894 Daniel Williams became the Chief
Surgeon at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He also
reorganized the hospital by making more surgical departments.
Because of this, there was an increase of efficiency and a decrease
of patient deaths. Sometime
in 1912, Williams became a teacher at St. Luke’s. When he retired he
received many honors and awards. Daniel Williams died on August 4,
1931 of a stroke in Michigan. His wife died before Williams died.
Williams was a great man and surgeon no matter what skin color he
had.